At the risk of sounding haughty, do you have a better explanation for his actions? He might be very powerful, but his reasoning is still grounded in what he can personally come up with; he won't direct his attention somewhere he is not inclined to, even though he could. I'm only assuming the Arkendish gives him a high degree of control of Thinkamantic powers, not that it enhances his own Natural Thinkamancy (powers of intuition, concentration, and anticipation, specifically, is what I mean here - at best, he can consult with his Archons for this, which is an ability it grants rather than an outright increase in his own stats).

I am not assuming I'm 100% correct, either, but I would like to hear if you have another theory.

At the risk of sounding haughty, do you have a better explanation for his actions? He might be very powerful, but his reasoning is still grounded in what he can personally come up with;

To determine someone's motivations from their actions, one must:

1) Know exactly what knowledge they have and do not have
2) Have an accurate profile of their personality, so you can determine their priorities
3) Know their closest allies, who may propose alternatives, if trusted adequately enough to know what's going on
4) Know what resources are available, and how much they are worth
5) Be smarter than him (An idiot cannot invent a plan a far more intelligent person could invent)

And maybe some other things.

In other words, to accurately present what Charlie might do, I would have to know Charlie inside and out, and I would have to be smarter than him. So here are the problems that get in the way of the above:

a) We don't know what Charlie knows about the situation. Some people assume he has infinite knowledge. I do not.
b) We do not know Charlie's personality, in the slightest. We were lead to believe that he was entirely mercenary, and yet he has thrown Schmuckers at creating FAQ. There is an aspect of Charlie that we were not aware of throughout Book 1. How many other aaspects are we missing?
c) We do not know what resources Charlie has available to him. We know about Archons, the Arkendish, his city, and his ability to draw upon Casters in the MK, but we don't have a complete list of what deals he could make with Sides the readership is not aware of, how indebted those nations are, other magic items Charlie may have, etc., etc.
d) Which of us is smarter -- Rob or me? There is no Charlie. Rob is the intelligence behind Charlie, and that skews everything. Charlie won't act like a paranoid schizophrenic if he has that disorder: he will act like Rob's view of what paranoid schizophrenia is.

In other words, while I could invent an explanation for Charlie, I can guarantee that it is wrong, because we lack a lot of essential knowledge ion order to predict that action.

Since old-Ansom would have considered new-Ansom an abomination, I wonder if Charlie assumed that Jillian would dust new-Ansom out of loyalty to the values of old-Ansom. Charlie hasn't had the same face-to-face contact with decrypted units that the units on the scene have had, so he may not realize how vividly alive they are.

effataigus wrote:

2. Convince Jillian to turn back! It's not clear that Jillian would go back and deal with Wanda even if Ansom were dead... although it does seem marginally more likely that she would go back for better or ill. He may be thinking that Jillian could be bribed to head back into the fray if Ansom were removed from the picture... or would do it for Jetstone's sake.

Maybe he thought that Sammy would appear to be croaking rather than capturing Ansom on his own initiative, and that Jillian would be more favorably inclined toward Jetstone if Haggar were the ones who croaked Ansom.

Maybe he thought that Sammy would appear to be croaking rather than capturing Ansom on his own initiative, and that Jillian would be more favorably inclined toward Jetstone if Haggar were the ones who croaked Ansom.

However he views them (which I don't think we can divine at this time due to Charlie's penchant for double-talk), it is fair to say that he wants at least one archon back alive more than he wants it dead. His words backed up with his money.